In late August, I asked my readers, male and female, to provide insight into how much they spent on clothing, beauty and hygiene. My hypothesis is that as a professional woman it is difficult to spend frugally in the hygiene category, due to the demands a professional environment puts on looking put together.

Being a research analyst by trade, these results are not as clean as I would have liked, since many of the questions were open-ended, but there are still interesting findings to be gleaned.

Including myself, 21 readers took the survey – 6 men and 15 women. This uneven gender balance is pretty standard in survey research, I’ve found, as women are much more likely to respond to surveys than men.

The professions of the participants varied tremendously, but many were technical in nature (i.e. research associate, technical writer, systems analyst). There were also several graduate students who participated.

Responsibility level was hard to judge – I divided it into “low,” “medium,” and “high,” but this was basically a judgment call on my part. If you wrote down “manual labor” or “delivery driver” I judged your level of responsibility to be low; whereas if you wrote “working attorney” or “booking agent” I judged it to be high. For some I could not even make a guess – how would you judge “personal trainer?”

Clothing: I asked how much each participant had spent on clothes in the past six months. The overall mean was $286. For men, the mean was $240, with a range from $11-$600. Women spent more overall, ranging from $60-$1,000 with a mean of $305. (I did not test significance on this, or any, numbers, as the N was too low). The highest spending participant was a woman, and the lowest spending participant was a man.

Haircuts: I asked how often each participant had their hair cut, and how much it cost each time. On average participants cut their hair 4.7 times per year; the average cost was $31 (ranging from $0-$115). Several individuals cut their own hair or had a family member or partner cut it (one man and three women), for a net cost of $0. For men, the average number of haircuts per year was 5, and the average cost was $17 (ranging from $0-$30). For women, the average number of haircuts per year was 4.5 (longer hair does need to be cut less often), and the average cost was $36 (ranging from $0-$115).

Hair products: I asked how many hair products each person used on a regular basis, and how much each one cost. Keep in mind that measurements may be skewed here, as people buy products in different sizes, which thus determines how frequently they buy them. On average, participants used 2.3 hair products (ranged from 1-7), with a mean total cost of $17. Men on average spent $14 on 1.6 products (range of 1-3 products for a total of $3-45); women on average spent $19 on 2.5 products (range of 1 to 7 products for a total of $0-$50). The highest spending participant was female, as was the participant using the largest number of products.

Number of steps in routine: Reports varied tremendously here, depending on what people considered to be part of their routine. Many people did not include obvious steps, like “get dressed.” (I want to work in their office!) I discounted any steps that did not specifically have to do with hygiene, such as “check email” or “grab my iPod.” On average, participants’ routines included 5.3 steps (ranging from 3-10). For men, the range was narrower (3 to 5 steps) with an average number of steps of 4. Women’s routines ranged from 3 to 10 steps, with an average number of 5.8. The most detailed routines were those carried out by women.

Monthly hygiene expenditure: Not everybody knew how to answer this question, but I calculated responses from the nine people who did. The average monthly expenditure was $45, and ranged from $15-$100. For men, of whom there were only two, the average cost was $65 (range: $30-$100). For the seven remaining women, the mean was $40 (range: $15-$80).

Overall observations on level of responsibility: expenses did seem to differ as a function of the level of responsibility. The highest spending women, and some of the highest spending men, were in jobs with medium or high responsibility. Although I did not ask about office environment, this seemed to be predictive, with participants who worked in traditional environments, such as law firms or corporate offices, spending more on their appearance than others. Students – all of whom were female – were a low-spending group, unsurprisingly.

I urge caution in interpreting these findings, as always, because the N is so low – especially for the last items! But in most places this survey shows women spending considerably more time and money on personal appearance.

Women out there: what do you do – or what can you do? – to reduce the hold personal appearance has on your finances?

Related Posts:

Join In!